Why Agreements are powerful coaching tools

Agreements are powerful coaching tools. Why?

Written agreements are tools that allow teachers and students to create and explore a world that does not exist, yet.

Educators are expected to prepare students for the future, a future that is unclear. We do our best to peer ahead through the fog of the unknown, and guess what the future might hold. We guess at the skills that a student might need to have in order to become a happy and useful citizen. Then we design classroom activities that lead students in that direction.

However, if we offer our lessons without including students' voices, we risk resistance from them. Our best intentions in preparing them for the future can lead us astray. We notice this when students continually misbehave (signal their discomfort) and are not fully engaged (ask for something else) in the lesson activities.

What happens when we include students' voices in the design and contents of their lessons? What guidance can we give them?

Three and half guiding questions

1. What results do we want to produce?
2. What can we agree on?
3. What kind of teaching / learning would support those results?

What kind of lessons do we want to experience?

Fun and Energy vs Focus and Learning

The Situation

The teacher was leading the lessons, showing information, giving instructions, asking everyone the same questions, and getting only a few responses.

Interruptions, such as chatting and nonsense answers, had become unbearable.

The teacher repeated her rules about focus during the lesson.

No improvement. She realised she needed more buy-in from students. She suggested they talk about it and find out what they want to do.

Temporary Confidentiality Agreement

The agreement was: the students are free to express themselves honestly, their teacher will not pay attention to who said what, but will pay attention to what they ask for and make changes to their lessons over time.

The natural class leaders stepped up and asked their classmates about the results and teaching, lesson design. Generally, their questions asked "What do we want More of / Less of ?", "What do we want to Keep / Throw out?"

The class was split on desired activities and outcomes. Some wanted to have fun and needed to use up their high levels of energy. Others were happy focusing and learning from the lessons as they were. Some were competitive and liked to get answers and grades during the lesson. Some were collaborative and enjoyed working in groups, others did not and preferred to work alone.

The results. The teacher gathered in the varied requests. Her new design had short lesson segments, clear short term goals (aligned with longer term goals) more moving around, more pauses. The teacher set up a handful of learning stations where the tasks could be completed in 10 minutes, answers given, scores shared voluntarily. Students move between stations, changed groups. The lesson comprised a brief intro (rules), 3 or 4 rounds of learning stations, followed by brief "What did we learn" reflection before the bell.

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